


Face Punch

by Taliax



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Humor, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Ladrien | Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, i cant find the tag for it currently, just them talking about what felix did and what lila has done in canon, nothing graphic whatsoever, post-felix episode, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22798348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taliax/pseuds/Taliax
Summary: Adrien apologizes to Ladybug for his cousin's actions.  He doesn't expect her to trust and tease him in the same breath.  Ladrien, post-Felix episode.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 56
Kudos: 379





	Face Punch

**Author's Note:**

> Just some silly ladrien tonight

“Adrien?”

He jumped, barely stopping himself from whirling around and punching his lady in surprise. He _shouldn’t_ be surprised; he as Chat was the one who’d asked her to meet “Adrien” in the secluded part of this park.

And he _really_ shouldn’t punch her. That was kind of the opposite of why he was here.

“M—Ladybug! You came.” Nervousness had him smiling too tightly, though normally his Lady was one of the few people he could relax around. 

Maybe Plagg had been right, and this was a stupid idea. But she deserved an apology, even if it just came from him.

“Of course. Chat told me you wanted to see me?”

He noticed how she kept her distance, standing in the middle of the grassy patch turned pink by the sunset. He couldn’t blame her for staying back. Maybe she knew it had been Felix who’d tried to kiss her, but how could she look at Adrien’s face and not see the guy who had been such a creep?

He hadn’t realized the extent of what Felix had attempted until after his cousin left, and the footage of him trying to kiss Ladybug ended up on Nadia Chamak’s broadcast. If he had, his parting words would have been a lot less forgiving.

“Yes. I—I won’t keep you, I know you’ve got better things to do than talk to me, but I just wanted to say—I’m so sorry. For yesterday.”

He winced, preparing himself for some kind of rebuke. Yes, it hadn’t been _him_ who did something worthy of Ladybug punching his face, but it was still _his_ face. His appearance used to deceive his Lady. If he’d trusted Felix less, if he’d listened to Plagg…

Adrien knew how it felt to be kissed without permission, to be clung to and fawned over by people who couldn’t care less about him. But somehow he hadn’t fully processed how awful it was until the same thing happened to his Lady.

“Wait… Felix?” She took another step back. Her eyes narrowed in a dangerous way he’d only seen directed at akumas. It was a look that could freeze his blood.

Well, that settled it. If Ladybug ever did fall in love with him, he could never reveal his identity. Not when she turned her icy glare on him like _that._

“No, I’m Adrien. The real one.” Why did he say that? That only made it sound more like he was an imposter!

She peered at him and bit her lip. What was she thinking? Did she want to believe him? Was she going to punch him like she had his cousin?

He wouldn’t blame her, honestly.

“Alright. Just to be safe—how many time loops did you go through trying to save me?”

“25,913,” he answered without missing a beat (though his heart missed several).

Relief flooded her features before she hung her head. “Sorry. That one was cruel. It was the first thing I thought of that only you would know.”

“You could’ve gone with my hero name,” he pointed out. It _did_ hurt to remember how many times he’d failed—but at the same time, he couldn’t help a new surge of love at the fact she remembered.

(Maybe she didn’t hate Adrien. Maybe.)

“You never told it to me. Not outside of the time loops, I guess.”

“Oh.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It was Aspik, but—nevermind. That’s not why I asked you to come.”

“Then why?” She asked, stepping softly towards him, emerald grass bending lightly under her feet.

In any other circumstance, sharing a private moment in a sunset garden would’ve been a romantic dream come true. But now he wrenched his thoughts away from how the pink light glowed off her dark hair, from how her eyes stared into his like she truly wanted to see him.

(He had to be imagining that. Ladybug was just too nice to show her discomfort, probably.)

“I’m not Felix, but I _did_ want to apologize for him,” he said firmly. “What he did to you was wrong, and you had every right to punch him in the face.”

There. That was all. It didn’t matter if she forgave him or not; at least she could know he was sorry.

Her head tilted slightly as she examined him like a particularly complicated Lucky Charm. “You… wait, I’m confused. Why are you apologizing for him? It’s not your fault.”

Her mouth opened like she wanted to add something after that, then thought better of it. 

“It kind of is, though,” he said. He wrapped his arms around himself as a light breeze ruffled his overshirt. “He used _my_ face. He used my phone to record that awful message that got my friends reakumatized… I never notice people’s lies until it’s too late,” he murmured. 

First Lila, scheming to separate him from his Lady, on top of the ways she’d lied to and harassed him personally. Now Felix, trying to sabotage his friendships and attack his partner. 

Why were so many people close to him dedicated to hurting Ladybug? Why, after all this time, did it still feel like he couldn’t protect her when it mattered? 

“Adrien.” Ladybug’s voice was soft, almost like when she comforted an akuma victim after a battle. Hesitantly, her hand reached up to rest on his shoulder. “Wanting to see the best in people isn’t a bad thing, you know.”

 _It is when you pay the price for it,_ he couldn’t say.

“Thanks, m-Ladybug.” He couldn’t meet her eyes either. _She_ was the one seeing the best in him. And he fell a little more in love with her for it, for all that it was hard to believe her.

“Everyone has to take accountability for their own actions,” she added, as if she could tell he wasn’t convinced. “Hawkmoth chose to use his miraculous for evil. Felix chose to try to kiss me when I told him no. You didn’t make either of those choices, and I know you never would.”

“Do you?” How could she know? She didn’t remember her time with him as Aspik. She barely knew “Adrien” at all, outside of saving him from… okay, so she’d had to save him a _lot._ Too many akumas seemed to be directly interested in him, from Gorizilla to Chameleon to Oni-Chan to Party Crasher—he’d probably caused as many akumas as Chloe at this point.

No. _Hawkmoth_ caused the akumas. He knew that, even if it was difficult to shake the guilt sometimes.

 _“Yes,”_ she replied earnestly. “You wouldn’t be here apologizing to me now if you were anything like your cousin. I trust you.”

Heat rushed to his face. That smile could slay him on the spot, if her words didn’t first.

“Th-thanks. I trust you too.”

The way her smile widened at that threatened to melt him into the grass underfoot. As his brain fizzled he rambled, “O-of course I trust you, since you’re a superhero and you’ve saved me so many times and you’re so amazing you could punch me in the face and I’d thank you.” 

She blinked, her eyes wide as he’d ever seen them.

...Why, why, _why_ did he just say that?

“ _Uh_. I’m gonna. Shut up now.” He stared at the ground, fighting the urge to bury his face in his hands. 

He _would_ thank her if she punched him and put him out of his misery now.

She giggled awkwardly. “I’d never punch you in the face. Um. But, um, thank you. For the apology. And everything, I… if it’s okay…?”

Her hand moved from his shoulder to hover near his cheek. He could feel the heat emanating from her palm even through her suit. What was she— _was_ she…?

He nodded dumbly, and then she stood on tip-toe to kiss the blush on his cheek. It was the briefest of touches, but she came away flushed as pink as he must be.

“Better than a punch, I hope.” A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. 

“Much,” he said breathlessly.

She laughed again. “Might want to close that mouth, handsome boy. You’ll end up catching butterflies in there.”

He snapped his jaw shut, cheeks burning. If she were anyone else, he’d assume she’d kissed him just to have a chance to tease him afterwards. But she wasn’t like that— even if he had a hard time understanding why she _had_ kissed him. Sure, she’d kissed his cheek after he’d given up the snake miraculous too… was it really just a thank you? Did she thank every miraculous wielder like that?

That was a dangerous train of thought, one that was better left in the station. Besides, with the print of her lips burned into his cheek, he decided it didn’t matter.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that.” As if any akuma could touch him when the love of his life kissed him and gave him a nickname like that _._

She looked down with another little laugh—he could bottle it up and cure depression with the sound—before unhooking her yo-yo from her hip.

“Good. Punching your cousin was bad enough. I’d hate for you to get akumatized and actually have to punch your face.” She winked, and he wondered if she knew how that one action turned each of his joints to jelly.

“You won’t. I promise.” He’d promise her anything, like the lovestruck fool he was. Why was it so much harder to pull it together around her without his suit?

“But if I did, you’d thank me for it?” The tiny smirk playing on her lips should be illegal. 

“Now you’re just messing with me,” he muttered, pretending to pout. It was so hard not to banter back with her like he did as Chat, but he was eternally grateful that she seemed to trust Adrien enough to tease him too. Maybe the incident with Desperada had brought her closer to him in spite of everything. That was the only explanation he could think of, anyway.

“Maybe so,” she said, her grin widening as she unhooked her yo-yo from her hip. “I’d love to stay and mess with you more, but I know you’ve got to get back to your—well, someone will miss you soon. See you around, Adrien. Bug out!”

She swung off towards a distant rooftop, becoming a streak of red against the skyline.

And him? He stood rooted in that clearing, dazed enough that he might have been punched in the face after all.


End file.
